


Closer and Closer

by AuditoryCheesecake



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, Fluff, Found Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-17
Updated: 2017-03-17
Packaged: 2018-10-06 19:19:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10342860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuditoryCheesecake/pseuds/AuditoryCheesecake
Summary: Dalish shows Skinner how to read the wind, so they can sneak right up to the wild animals-- or Skinner pretends to let Dalish show her. They make a game of it: who can get closest to the giant spiders?That’s the first time Dalish laughs since she’s been with the Chargers





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [eightbots](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eightbots/gifts).



> For Acebats. I hope you like it! :D

She sits at the edge of the circle of firelight, facing into the woods. It’s not her watch, but she doesn’t feel like eating right now. She picks at the ground with her new dagger-- she’s cleaned the Shem’s blood off it, it’s hers now.

Skinner, the one with the sharp eyes and unfamiliar accent, comes and sit next to her. Dalish-- that’s what she told everyone to call her, not her clan name, not the name her clan gave her-- ignores her.

Skinner watches the trees while Dalish stabs the ground.

“Did you draw the short straw?” she asks when the silence goes on too long. “Or did they send you to check on me because you’re an elf too?”

“Second one, I think.” Skinner’s shoulders move under her shirt. Dalish doesn’t look.

“We’re not the same kind of elf.” It comes out more angry than Dalish means it too. Skinner doesn’t seem to mind.

“You ever killed a Shem before?”

“Yes.” She twists the tip of the dagger further into the ground. “But from farther off. With arrows.”

“He would have killed you if you hadn’t done it first.”

“I know that.” This is a less comforting version of the talk her brother had given her. “I helped track them. I know what they did.”

“Are you sorry you killed him?”

Dalish snorts. “No.”

Skinner stands up and holds out her hand. “Then maybe we are the same kind of elf.” Dalish grasps her wrist, lets herself be pulled to her feet. Skinner’s washed the blood off her face as well, and her skin looks strange and unadorned.

\--

One thing Dalish learns about the Chargers: they’re quick. She learns to be fast as well, whether they’re killing spiders or Shems. She can already run through the woods, but she learns to make the sort of observations and reports that make the Iron Bull nod in approval.

It’s funny, how little she chafes under his command, when before she couldn’t wait to be out on her own. Maybe family’s different if you aren’t expected to treat it a certain way.

She’s pretty sure that he’s the one who decided that she and Skinner work well together. They are good at being quiet, stalking through the woods or alleyways, once through a field of wheat that brushed the tips of Dalish’s ears.

They’re good at killing quietly. Dalish shows Skinner how to read the wind, so they can sneak right up to the wild animals-- or Skinner pretends to let Dalish show her. They make a game of it: who can get closest to the giant spiders?

That’s the first time Dalish laughs since she’s been with the Chargers. Skinner stalking an arm’s-length behind a spider, the way it hops back like it’s surprised when it finally sees her. Skinner has it dead in an instant, daggers in her hands already, but there’s something about the moment that has Dalish doubled over, gasping for breath.

Skinner shushes her, gesturing madly from the other side of the cave, but she’s grinning too. Dalish laughs harder.

A second, larger, spider skitters down the wall of the cave behind Skinner, who dispatches it just as quickly as the first, once Dalish pins it in place with a single shot.

“Be quiet!” Krem hisses from behind her. “You’ll wake up the whole nest!”

“Do spiders even sleep?” Rocky wonders. “Or are they just watching us?”

Grim makes a protesting noise. Skinner slips back to the group, bumping Dalish’s shoulder with her own. 

“Really,” Rocky continues, “I never thought of it, but how do bugs sleep? Or do spiders just sorta, y’know, sit there? Waiting?”

Grim smacks him then, and Dalish isn’t sure whether it’s the echoing noise of that or Rocky’s pained yelp that brings the rest of the spiders swarming down from the ceiling, but at the point it doesn’t really matter.

“Maker’s ass,” Krem mutters, hefting his blade. “That’s too many fucking spiders.”

“Your Maker has nothing to do with spiders,” Dalish tells him. “That’s all us.”

Skinner laughs, a sharp little chuckle that Dalish barely hears before it’s over.

\--

It’s after a battle, because everything these days is after, or before, or between battles. She’ll stand up soon, when she’s got her breath back. Her hands ache from gripping her staff so hard, and she focuses on that instead of the stinging cut on her forehead.

“Are you injured?” Skinner appears at her elbow, bloodied up to her wrists.

Dalish shakes her head. “Tired. Could use a lyrium draught, if you have one.”

Skinner frowns. “You started the day with three.”

“I was--” what can she say? _I had to drink them all to keep a barrier on your back?_

“You _are_ hurt.” Skinner leans over her. “Did you hit your head when you fell?”

“You saw that?” Dalish groans.

“I noticed the shift in the… air.” She knows about the barriers. Does she know about all the barriers Dalish has cast?

“Sorry,” Dalish finds herself saying. “I can-- I can stop, if you want me to.”

The furrow between Skinner’s brows deepens. “It’s fine,” she says after a moment.

It isn’t, really. She shouldn’t use magic on people without telling them first. Dalish shakes her head. It’s a bad idea. “Ouch,” she tells Skinner, when everything stops spinning quite so much.

“Right.” Skinner helps her to her feet. “Let’s find Stitches.”

“Wait.” Dalish’s sore fingers slide between Skinner’s bloody ones. “Are _you_ hurt?”

“No.”

“Good.” She looks at Skinner’s face. “You’ve got some blood on you, though.”

Skinner smiles. Dalish almost trips over her own feet while standing still. “None of it’s mine.”

“Good,” Dalish says again. They don’t move anywhere.

She reaches up and smears a little blood over Skinner’s eyebrows, in lines sort of like vallaslin.

Skinner stares at her.

“Now we match,” Dalish says, and looks around for Stitches.

\--

It’s cold, that night, so Dalish volunteers to take watch. At least she can keep herself warm.

She listens to the company quiet as they fall asleep. When the only sounds are Rocky snoring and the wind in the trees above her, she leaves the fire to circle the edges of the camp. There’s nothing out there except for the crickets, an owl and a few unfortunate mice. Dalish strengthens the wards anyways.

When she returns to the fire, Skinner’s there, poking the coals with a stick, making the flames jump and spark.

Dalish sits next to her, watching the patterns she scratches in the ash. 

“You’ve still got blood on your face,” she says eventually, because it’s true.

Skinner looks at her sharply, then shrugs. “It scared Stitches, so I left it.”

Dalish laughs.

“And we match.” Her smile is weird in the flickering firelight, lopsided and twisting. Dalish still thinks it’s beautiful. “Even if you should spend more time watching your own back.”

“Can’t see mine.” Dalish bumps her shoulder against Skinner’s. “And it can’t look as nice as yours.”

“No more talking like the Chief.” Skinner presses back against her.

“Or what?” Dalish smirks.

“Or I won’t do this.”

Skinner doesn’t kiss softly. She presses her lips against Dalish’s with determination, grips the back of Dalish’s neck with the same fierceness as she holds her daggers in a fight. She moves almost as fast too, pulling back almost before Dalish can realize what she’s doing.

“Who should I talk like to make you do that again?” Dalish asks.

Skinner’s grin is sharp. “Just you.”


End file.
